11 research outputs found
Interview with Rob George
No full textDon Dunstan Oral History Project interview transcripts. No conditions are imposed on the reuse of this transcript by the interviewee.Interview with Rob George by Felicity Morgan about his contribution to the arts in South Australia during the period of Don Dunstan's premiership, specifically in the field of theatre. The interview was held on 9th March, 2011
Caribbean Report 01-10-1997
No full text1. Headlines (00:00-00:28)2. Britain defends it commitment to Caribbean bananas. George Foulkes, Under-Secretary of State in the Department for International Development, and Former Prime Minister Vaughn Lewis are interviewed. Adam Brimelow reports (00:29-04:19)3. A compromise bill giving President Bill Clinton special powers to negotiate international trade deals has been backed by the United States Senate Finance Committee. The Finance Committee has also endorsed extending the free trade benefits of NAFTA to Caribbean countries participating in the CBI. Moya Thomas reports (04:20-06:31)4. At the United Nations General Assembly Cuba denounces the US for alleged arrogant world domination. Rob Watson reports (06:32-09:44)5. The Prime Minister of Bahamas Hubert Ingram returns from a week long visit to China. In China he engaged in talks with the government to assist the Bahamas improve its handicraft industry which helps boost tourism revenue. Editor of the Nassau Guardian discusses Nassau's ties with Beijing. Oswald Brown, Editor of the Nassau's Guardian is interviewed (09:45-11:55)6. Trinidadian taxi drivers threaten to strike over a music license controversy. Chairman of COTT, Alvin Daniel is interviewed and Tony Fraser reports (11:56-13:43)7. Stories of Caribbean interest appearing in the British press (13:44-15:23
Interview of Rob Ferrell
No full textA local organizer and multi-disciplined creative, Rob Ferrell, discusses his first experiences with the Black Lives Matter movement as a staff photographer/videographer at Goucher College in 2013-2015, with the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Freddie Gray prompting action for the movement. He then discusses how the fire and passion for the movement he saw in young people around him inspired him to get more involved and join workshops like that of the Baltimore Racial Justice Action group which provided him with antiracism education as well as become a more active member in the movement through organizing and his work with Organizing Black. Rob then goes on to talk about Organizing Black's current campaign to defund the Baltimore Police Department, and the issues surrounding race and policing in the community. He also discusses the organization's collaboration with members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Afterwards, Rob talks about his own photography work, specifically the story behind his photo of Melvin Townes, as well as photography inspirations, the importance of the narrative of the Black Lives Matter movement being told from the perspective of protestors, organizers, and individuals who are currently living through what it is fighting for, rather than the individuals who are merely observing it, and what he wants his audience to ultimately take away from his photography work.This interview was conducted during the 2021 Interdisciplinary CoLab as part of the project, From the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter: Oral Histories of the Lived Experience in Baltimore. Transcript is edited.From the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter: Oral Histories of the Lived Experience in Baltimore
Date: 7 June 2021
Location: Online via Webex programming
Interviewer: Lorra Toler
Transcription: Deysi Chitic-Amaya
Interviewee: Rob Ferrell
Length: 00:37:57
00:00:04
Lorra Toler (LT): Hello, this is Lorra Toler from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, summer CoLab project “From the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter: oral histories of the lived experience in Baltimore.” The day is June seventh, 2021 and today I will be interviewing Rob Ferrell.
Rob is an artist, organizer, archivist, designer and activist based in the Baltimore area. He is grounded in the black, radical tradition and came into the movement through the frame of direct action as a lifelong learner and teacher. He works as a lead trainer in the Ellen Baker organizing Institute to build the capacity of the next generation of black organizers. He currently serves as a senior organizer and cofounder of Organizing Black, a grassroots member lead organization focus on transformation on direct action, political education and participatory governance in Baltimore city. He is also a national member of the Black Youth Project 100, an alumni of black organizing for leadership and dignity. As an experienced multi-disciplined creative specializing in photography and video production, he focuses on capturing black organizing and liberation from an oppressive society. Thank you for joining us today. My first question for you is what initially brought you to this line of work?
00:01:32
Rob Ferrell (RF): I'll just for the record, my name is pronounced fuh-RELL, just because this is recorded and I figured it'd be helpful for the record, but...
What brought me into the work, so I was working at Goucher College. I worked there as the staff photographer/videographer for around eight years from 2013 to 2021. And you know, if you're working with the movement, history of the black lives matter movement, 2013 was a very pivotal year. With the murder of Trayvon Martin and then 2014 is the murder of Michael Brown, and then 2015 involved the murder of Freddie Gray. So, during that time I was around young people and as a young person myself, and they showed an amount of passion and an amount of drive to organize that inspired me. Young people’s radical imagination and a willingness to transform it, sure lit a fire underneath me and allowed me to see the possibility of organizing it in general, so.
But I also at that time, I didn't have any real training, understanding, like, they were like running circles around me with, like, theory and like language and so I, I decided to like take a workshop with a Baltimore Racial Justice Action, which is a local group here in Baltimore that does workshops and antiracism education and then, like, after I took that workshop like the blinders were removed, the proverbial blinders and I realize that now that I can—I can't unsee these things now. Now my life has to be somehow changed to address... all the ills of society that I see all around me. So that's what really got my start was being around young people, the fire of young people, and then...
Yeah, working at, ironically working at a higher institution, but I was in a position in which I had a lot of freedom of movement and autonomy as the campus photographer/videographer. So I could be very subversive in the ways that I showed up in spaces, I could kind of come and go as I pleased. And, like build relationships with people across campus so that— I use that position within the institution to, to, to essentially organize. And then I started branching out after that ,showing up to like every single protest that I possibly could in Baltimore and in similar to the ways in which people did in twenty— summer of 2020 after George Floyd was murdered, a lot of people were mobilized, and and they just didn't know what to do and they just started showing up to protest. That was me. But in 2000, thirteen-fourteen. And then I eventually found my home with my people and I guess we'll talk more about Organizing Black later, but I found those people around that time.
00:05:25
RF: I think you're on mute.
LT: My apologies. What exactly does activism mean to you?
00:05:34
RF: I don't use the word activism and I don't identify as an activist. I identify as an organizer and I guess I can talk a little bit about the difference between the two, or at least the ways that I perceive the difference between the two. Activism is really a broad word that can mean a variety of different things. Um, but the crux of it for me is that activism is essentially an individualistic framework, and any individual can identify as an activist as long as you're doing something that that aligns with a cause, you can be an activist and that's essentially what it means right? As an organizer, you are moving people and aligning people with a shared purpose towards a common goal, right? So, the idea of wielding—building a depth and volume of relationships and then aligning those relationships across a shared purpose towards a shared goal, right? So, I identify as an organizer and I think activism is some—still somewhat imbued and embedded in organizing, but it's not my primary identific—identifier.
00:07:08
LT: Well, thank you for clarifying that and that you make a really good point. So, like, as an organizer, what specific issues are you working to change in the community and how have you gone about doing this?
00:07:25
RF: So, right now I'm leading Organizing Black’s campaign to defund the Baltimore police department. I'm a senior organizer with Organizing Black and so this campaign to defund the police is all around the idea that police, well, they're inherently anti black, right? They were born out of slave patrols and they are inherently violent and we, as a society have given them way too much power and resources and expect for them to solve any and all problems in our society and it's a simple solution that we can just take money from them and invest in the root causes that of the problems that we're actually talking about, right?
So we know that crime is not or criminality, things that we label that anyway are—is done out of survival not necessarily out of people being quote/unquote, bad people, people in a, in a capitalistic society are pitted against each other to fight for resources. Um, and so, the communities in our society that have the—that are the most safe have the most resources so if we just take the money that we're investing in police and invest it into social determinants of health, like, literally education, hou— affordable and public housing, um...health care and and all these jobs, right? All the things that people need to actually survive, then we actually can be a more healthy society and police become obsolete, or at least in, in the ways in which we're using them today, so that is the campaign that I'm working on.
How am I doing that? So we're rolling out a a canvas right now actually to go door to door in black communities and talk to directly impacted folks to learn about their experiences, but also to talk with them around ideas for, for, for alternatives to policing. Right, ‘cause when we say “Defund the police”, people are like, well, what is, what are we going to do about “Insert problem here”, right? And that's the thing about police abolition, it's not just about abolishing something, it's about generating a new future, right? New possibilities. So, but we have to collaboratively work on what those are right? No one is saying that they have the answer. Like Organizing Black or myself. No one is— we are not saying, “Hey, we have the answer to transform society and a create a new public safety mechanism”, but collaboratively black people have the ability to, to, to build that together and so we have to organize people we have to talk to them door to door, we have to build consensus, we have to build power again to be able to show that power to the government so that they actually follow through on defunding the police. But also there needs to be a base of black citizens and residents that are organized to to build solutions together.
00:11:10
LT: Yeah, you make a great point about, like issues with the police and how it's basically an attack against black lives. So could you discuss more about how like these incidents of racial injustices directly impact functions of the community and what long term impact do these incidents have?
00:11:38
RF: Functions of the community, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that? I would say police violence as a like, directly inhibits the freedom of movement of black people, right? If you look at the way that they operate in our societ— in in our communities.They like, sit on corners monitoring whether you're hanging out in front of a corner store or whatever, and so, yeah, they're, they're actively trying like to patrol our neighborhoods, and yeah, I would say, just in general, it's just restricting our, our freedom of movement, our freedom to, to, to be, to just be black, to be useful, like often if they target youth and criminalize activity that young children do just naturally, whether they're black, brown, purple, green, or whatever, but it happens in black community specifically, right? So, black children are not able to be children and to do child- like things. As far as functions of the community, I'm still not sure exactly what you mean by that question. So if you want to...clarify or expand on that.
00:13:06
LT: I think you covered it well.
RF: Ok.
LT: Oh what, so what does civil rights mean to you?
00:13:18
RF: I really don't use that word. What it means to me is generally the history of the movement, when I think of the word civil rights, I think of—of the sixties and and the fifty—fifties through seventies, really. I think of SNCC, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. I think of folks traveling from all over the East Coast to to the South East of America to, to organize black communities to be able to vote leading up to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1965. That's what I think of when I think of civil rights. I'm not a lawyer and I think that word only really gets used in legal contexts and in contemporary society, yeah, it really has no real weight or meaning—meaning for me other than like, kind of historical context.
00:14:29
LT: Okay, so in your approach with organizing, is there any strategies you take from, like, those earlier time periods?
00:14:41
RF: Yeah, I would say I kind of— it's nice to have this on record— that I'm in the lineage of SNCC, right? I'm still directly working with our SNCC elders today. Ms. Betty Garman Robinson who's Baltimore base here, I think she has extensive archives at the University at Baltimore and other folks like Courtland Cox and Judy Richardson are deeply involved in the advising of Organizing Black’s leadership today and I would say [laughs] what they always tell us, is that the people have to lead you [laughs], right? Strong people don't need strong leaders. So...yeah, being in a relationship, deep relationship with black people and not trying to dictate to them what is needed for their lives, allowing them to lead you and um, is probably the most important facet of their leadership style that we try, and continue today.
What's required for that? Like I said with SNCC, their organizing history was to literally travel and embed themselves in communities. Whe—whether it's Georgia or Alabama or Mississippi and they had to be led by— they couldn't air drop into these communities and tell them what—they had to be led by those communities and helped to organize them.
Here in Baltimore like, since most of my organization is from here— I'm not from Baltimore, I came here for college in 2004—and I've kind of been here ever since, but you know, folks are indigenous Baltimoreans, and so it's not the same level of urgency in the sense that, like, you're not from this place so you need to like branch out and like organize that community really, really effectively to be able to, like have any influence in that space. Folks are from here and these are their neighborhoods, and, you know, they can organize their communities and their families and their families families and their friends, et cetera and then the circle just gets wider.
Um, but yeah, leading, having—allowing the community to lead you is probably the most important lesson from SNCC, and from our elders that they pass on and continue to emphasize for us.
00:17:52
LT: So you make a great point about the importance of working with your elders. So I want to ask you, why do you think we're still seeing a lot of the same issues that they were fighting for, in the past?
00:18:11
RF: Because it's about the structure of our entire society? And, if you look at it, basically a numbers game we’re activating and mobilizing around three to five percent of the country to try and shift the entire society, right? So it's a massive system, that has many different webs and branches to it, and it's in its own interest to continue, right? So whether capitalism underguards it right? And that's the reason why mass incarceration, even though there's relative consensus, even across liberal and conservative leadership, that it's bad for society, that it makes money, so it can—it will continue. Whether it's people investing in those corporations, those corporations then lobbying the government, like right? It's a continuous cycle. Yeah, our entire society is built on Black death and and there's no March or [laughs] one protest that’s that's going to bring that massive system to a halt. You would have to literally destroy America.
00:19:46
LT: Okay, thank you. So now I want to talk more about your work with photography. So why do you think it's important to take photos, like, during these movements? In the past and in the present now?
00:20:05
RF: It's important for people that are active—directly active in these spaces to tell our own stories. What I would not want is for thirty, fifty, 100 years from now, there are only to be photographs taken by random white people, or white journalists and photojournalists that are able to to create a narrative around what we did and so I came to Baltimore to go to MICA, so I'm classically trained as a photographer and artist, and it, it doesn't make sense—it makes the most sense for me to be utilizing the skills that I naturally have for the sake of the movement. Although I am an organizer, that does not cancel out my artistry. I can do both at the same time and so, yeah, it's important for us to tell our own stories.
00:21:09
LT: So in telling your story, are you influenced by any other photographers, or any photographs in particular?
00:21:20
RF: I would say I'm mostly influenced by my contemporary peers, the work of Devin Allen, he’s from West Baltimore. The work of Joe Giordano, he’s a native Baltimorean as well but he’s white, but he’s kind of an OG in the space and have been shooting for a long time. The work of Shan Wallace, also a native black Baltimorean that focuses on the life and beauty and joy of blackness. And then the work of Gioncarlo Valentine, who’s also a native Baltimorean, but...they focus specifically in their archives on black male bodies, black male life, black male emotional and social issues and they've, they've grown and developed into an editorial photographer that does a lot of like big assignments for like the New York Times and Esquire, and, you know, every, all these magazines and stuff so it's cool. I have a kind of a small net of contemporary photographers that they really influence my work.
00:22:58
LT: Are there any stories or moments behind any photos that really resonate with you?
00:23:07
RF: Yeah, there's a photograph. I'm trying to pull up this story for you all, so give me one second, but it's—it's a few years old, so I always forget the young man's name. July eighth, 2016, I took this photo of Melvin Townes. He was about 16 years old at the time and he, he directly confronted a Baltimore police officer. He has, he's kind of standing erect with a black pow—a black power fist raised and this officer is sitting in the front seat of a paddy wagon and his windows rolled down, and he’s giving this most smug, pig-like, face and so you're looking at Melvin from the back as you—he directly stares this man down and it was this like showdown, like, he stood there for a solid, like, at least a minute, and this was during the flow of like, a natural flow of a march where this paddy wagon was parked on the side of the road and he stopped and engaged with this officer and this officer’s response is just so smug and like dead and like anti black and hateful.
That was definitely a photograph that like stood out to stood out to me and his history, so, “July fifth, 2016, just 3 days earlier, Melvin was walking to his brother's house at night when he noticed an officer arresting a man and thinking of the high profile instances of police brutality, he went over to observe the situation to make sure the man was okay. The officers told him to leave repeatedly and he hesitated, but eventually did, but wasn't able to get far before BPD officer Carlos Rivera Martinez chased him down, slammed him to the ground, put a knee in Melvin's back and punched him repeatedly. Although Melvin was hospitalized, he felt lucky to be alive and to walk away from the situation”, and so, like Melvin, like, during that night, that protest, he was just full of rage like in, in, on fire.
But it wasn't known to me at the time that that had just recently happened to him, and these are the stories of black people's interactions with police every day in Baltimore and that's hopefully what my work can capture when folks are taking to the streets. That every photograph or every person in in the street has a story. Every person in the street has an interaction with the police. I myself have terrible interactions with the police, so that's what I hope to capture in my work.
00:26:28
LT: Yeah, I think you gave a very vivid description of that picture even though, like, we aren’t able to see it. I can definitely picture it in my head. So, I wanna ask you, what do you want your audience to take away from observing your art and photos like that?
00:26:50
RF: Yeah, I-I think there's magic in resistance, and in imagining new possibilities, new futures and I want people to see that magic. I also spend a significant amount of my time photographing black organizers outside of organizing spaces, and in their maroon spaces, so spaces they've—safe spaces that they've intentionally created to liberate themselves from society, so essentially photographing them at rest and at ease. And so I don't want all of my work to be consumed by the idea of, of rage or anger or being a victim, like black people are full of power and magic, and we can manifest these spaces where we can be safe and loving and caring, caring for each other and so.
Yeah, I want people to see the whole picture, like, when people think of me, even in this context of this interview, I want people to think of, like, who I loved, like what I did for fun like the fact that my entire life is not based on and my entire worth as a human being is not based off of my ability to resist and so I want my, my photographs to expand folks’ ideas of who we are, and then also capture the work that we're doing.
00:28:42
LT: So, in your many years of organizing and doing art and photography, do you feel that progress is being made in the Baltimore community?
00:29:02
RF: I think whenever we ask these questions, the key is, how are we defining these words? What is—what do we define as progress, right? How are we measuring that progress? I would say there's definitely a growing sense of... political education, people— people understanding that police are bad, people understanding that we need to shift resources, to invest in poorly invested areas of our society, I would say that structurally, nothing has changed,
Caribbean Report 22-09-1997
No full text1. Headlines (00:00-00:30)2. Montserrat's volcano destroys the last remaining village in the East. Montserrat's Building Society which was closed for a month opened its doors to angry depositors. James White, Jr reports (00:31-03:24)3. While the EU again critices the trade ruling against the Windward bananas China emerges as a likely market. Also, St. Lucia would sign two agreements with China for the commencement of two major project, a free trade zone and a sports stadium. St. Lucia Foreign Minister, George Odlum is interviewed and Pete Ninvalle reports (03:25-06:11)4. European and ACP banana growers met in Brussels today and rejected claims that Latin American dollar banana producers have been adversely affected by the EU banana regime (06:12-06:52)5. In Georgetown Guyana, the Agriculture Minister of Mauritius has warned that sugar could be the next target of the World Trade Organisation (06:53-07:25)6. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have served notice that they are about to adopt a much tougher stance against corruption. However, the impact of such a decision on the Caribbean is negligible. Jamaica Finance Minister, Omar Davies, Errol Allum, Deputy Governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, Clare Short, International Development, Britain are interviewed. James Morgan and Ken Richards report (07:26-12:53)7. Developing countries are skeptical about the United States motives in supporting UN reforms. President Bill Clinton and Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations are interviewed. Rob Watson reports (12:54-15:30
Caribbean Report 22-03-2002
No full text1. Headlines (00:00-00:33)2. At the United Nations Anti-Poverty Summit in Monterey, Mexico, the Commonwealth Secretary General, Don McKinnon, says the summit must deliver a better deal for developing countries, but US President George W. Bush says giving aid is one thing, spending it properly was another. Rosie Hayes reports (00:34-02:12)3. Still in Monterey, President George W. Bush tells his fellow heads of state he’ll increase America’s aid budget by fifty percent but in return he wants developing countries to manage the aid they are given better and no amount of aid would help badly governed countries. Rob Watson reports (02:12-03:42)4. Sir Shridath Ramphal former Secretary General of the Commonwealth and one who has attended scores of meetings like Monterey speaks with Orin Gordon via telephone in London and says he is unimpressed with Mr. Bush’s arguments (03:43-06:27)5. The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) is trying to raise US$124 million for loans to the smaller countries of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). CDB President Dr. Compton Bourne tells the news conference tourism picked-up after the slump from the September 11th attacks in the US but not enough to take the OECS out of serious fiscal pressures. David Ellis reports (06:28-08:31)6. Congressional opponents of the US trade and travel embargo on Cuba appear to be growing in number. Two such opponents are Charlie Rangel and Vic Snyder of Arkansas. A group of law makers is describing the forty-year-old policy as hypocritical and a relic of the cold war but the Bush Administration says lifting these embargos will boost the Cuban economy and prolong Communist rule. Bertram Niles reports (08:32-10:10)7. National Security Minister, Peter Phillips, says Jamaican policemen are to be stationed in Britain’s two main airports to help reduce smuggling of illegal drugs from Jamaica into Britain. Conrad Hamilton reports the announcement comes following meetings between Jamaican government and British authorities. On a talk show, Police Commissioner Francis Forbes outlines other measures to address violent crime in Jamaica (10:11-12:06)8. Hundreds of people demonstrate in Roseau, Dominican to support Marpin Telecoms and Broadcasting Company being awarded a licence to provide a telecommunications service in Dominica. Marpin requires full interconnection between itself and Cable and Wireless but Cable and Wireless does not want to give up the monopoly it is enjoying in telecommunications (12:07-12:34)9. A pilot scheme, the Lambeth Scheme, where cannabis users are warned rather than arrested is to continue in Lambeth, London. Here supporters of suspended police officer, Brian Paddick, who pioneered the programme demonstrate, calling for the scheme and officer to be reinstated. Deputy Assistant Commissioner/Head of the Metropolitan Police Drugs Directorate, Mike Fuller, and Environmental Campaigner Shane Collins comment and Natalie Williams gives details (12:35-15:29
Brown, Donald
No full textInterviewee: Dr. Donald Brown
Interviewer: Dr. Brian Purnell
Summarized by: Estevan Román
Dr. Donald Brown was born on February 4th, 1948 at Morissania Hospital in the Bronx. His mother Lula Moore is from Athens, Georgia or actually a town just outside Athens named Whitehall. His father was named Robert Brown is from Charleston, South Carolina. His parents were thirteen years apart in age. He mentions that his mother was previously married with three other kids and he would meet them a few years later at his mother’s funeral. His father did not like Charleston because of the racism he was facing and to possibly the fact he was the youngest of his siblings and disliked the discipline, eventually left Charleston and found his way to New York City getting a job working at the shipyards. Dr. Brown states that he doesn’t recall his father ever living in the Bronx, his dad lived in Manhattan and visited the Bronx while his mother raised him in the Bronx. His parents were not married; his father was married to another woman.
Dr. Brown says that his first place he remembers his place of residence was 1345 Brook Avenue, in the Crotona Park Apartments. Mother passed when he was six. He lived with several different relatives. His dad’s nephew first, then the grandmother in Philadelphia, then with some woman who his dad established a relationship with in Philadelphia, and then she went to Baltimore herself, taking the little sister with her but was committed to returning to take care of Dr. Brown and his brother, and then the godmother’s house.
Dr. Brown’s father was diagnosed and dying of cancer, his brother went to live with his dad and stepmom. Dr. Brown at the age of 12 moved in with a distant cousin on his mother’s side, Reverend Author William Clayton and his wife Emily at the Patterson projects at East 143rd street and 3rd avenue. Dr. Brown talks about his brother committing a robbery and going to Sparks Detention Center. He noticed the attention his brother got from that so he decided to rob a bike. He was placed on probation and met Mr. Hall and he was a positive role model with positive reinforcement.
Dr. Brown finished PS 53, started attending Paul Lawrence Dunbar Junior High School, then A.S. Roberts JHS then went on the Elijah D. Clark JHS. He recalls PS 53 being predominantly Jewish while Brook Avenue was mostly black, and not having many material items, clothes in particular. He recalls the interaction with the Jewish kids being positive. He recalled playing “Johnny on the Pony” and “What was the point of Ringalevio?” He would go to the Jewish kids’ houses further up but they would never come down to the Brook Avenue. He mentions that getting wax removed his ears he was able to make a difference in his education, as he struggled a bit before that.
Dr. Brown talks about his time with Reverend and Mrs. Clayton, who were in their 60’s when they took care of him, and had no children with them at the time, but the ensured him he can stay as long as he wanted. Reverend was a janitor at Lexox Hill hospital and Mrs. Clayton was a homemaker. They became his parents.
Dr. Brown goes on to talk about his community at Paterson project and all the people whom he grew up and then mentions being part of Camp Minisink’s Army Cadet Corps, mostly because urban kids could not join the Boy Scouts, the Corps instilled positive values in its members. He used his experience at the Camp to launch an initiative named Christian Soldiers in Boston, modeled after the Cadet Corps. He talks about how some of the young men he grew up with being drawn into the negative elements such as drugs, crime and violence that were present in the neighborhood.
Dr. Brown graduated from De Whitt Clinton High School in 1965 which at the time was a mostly white school. After graduating from there, he went on to attend Springfield College with a 10,000 scholarship. Although he did not do well at first, he wound up being president of Afro-Am, which was a progressive thinking group at the College and working as the assistant director at a program called Upward Boun
The impact of Web-based lecture technologies on current and future practices in learning and teaching
No full textWeb-based lecture technologies cover a range of technologies, including iLecture/Lectopia, for digitally recording lectures for delivery to students online.
There has been a rapid uptake in WBLT in recent years. Despite their popularity with students, they are challenging some long held traditions associated with attendance patterns, teaching and learning. This project, a collaboration between Macquarie University, Murdoch University, Flinders University and University of Newcastle was conducted to gain a better understanding of these challenges.
The project report, supported by a number of research papers, summarises the key findings of the project. Based on these findings, a tool kit of resources has been developed for your use
Firm innovations from voluntary dyadic engagement with nonprofit organisations: an exploratory UK study
No full textThis dissertation presents the findings of an exploratory collective case-study examining
corporate innovations arising from voluntary dyadic engagement between UK firms and
nonprofit organisations (NPOs) focused on social issues.
Whilst the extant literature demonstrates that pro-active engagement with NPOs can
assist firms innovate, there has been no empirical work which explores the relationship
between the engagement and the innovation outcome: a gap which this research
addresses. In doing so, it illustrates how concepts and constructs from the innovation
management literature can be applied usefully to the stakeholder and cross-sector
collaboration field. To date, empirical studies addressing firm-NPO engagements have
concentrated overwhelmingly on partnerships to address environmental issues. This
study provides insights into cross-sector engagements focused on addressing social
issues.
Using a form of analytic induction to evaluate qualitative case-data from ten dyadic
engagements, this dissertation addresses the question: “how do firms innovate through
engagement with social issues nonprofit organisations?” The research found that
product and service innovations resulted from engagements where the firm had an
external stakeholder orientation and was focused on delivering tangible demonstrations
of corporate responsibility. Process innovations, by contrast, were produced from
engagements where firms had an internal stakeholder orientation. Two distinctions
were noted in the innovation process, too. Firstly, a more exploratory approach to
dyadic engagement activities, which resulted in an emergent innovation process; and
secondly, a focused and pre-determined search activity to exploit the resources of the
nonprofit partner which demonstrated a more planned innovation process. In addition,
two distinct boundary spanning roles were identified: in dyads with no direct
management involvement in the engagement, the role was associated with formal
responsibilities from senior management to „manage‟ innovation opportunities and
outcomes. In dyads where senior management were involved, there was no such
formality; the boundary spanner acted to „facilitate‟ search and exploration to locate
opportunities for innovation through idea exchange.
The application of innovation constructs to the business and society field has enabled
firm engagement with nonprofit stakeholders to be examined through a new lens and
demonstrated how firms innovate from such relationships. In particular it has
highlighted the key role played by the firm boundary spanner (relationship manager)
and how this role alters depending on senior management involvement: a distinction
which has not been made in the extant literature and would benefit from further
examination
'A little easy and modern for the times' : a documentary of productions of Ben Jonson's plays by major professional theatre companies in England, 1977-2000
No full textThis thesis is a collation and discussion of productions of Ben Jonson's plays in
England between 1977 and 2000. It focuses on mainstream theatre productions.
Therefore, amateur and Fringe productions, adaptations and productions by
small-scale theatre companies are not included. It contains previously unreleased
material of interviews with theatre practitioners who have been instrumental in
staging the productions covered.
Whilst scholarship has concentrated on recent productions of
Shakespeares, tudies in Jonsonianp erformanceh ave been neglected.W ith the
recent resurgence in popularity of Jonson's texts in the English theatre repertoire,
it is now pertinent to assessth e methodsu sed to staget he work of this
playwright. This thesis focuses only on the staging of texts presented between the
two dates; this does not cover all of Jonson's texts. Contained in two volumes,
Part One raises issues of performance, whilst in Part Two productions are
considered within chapters on each play. An Afterword (in Volume One)
considers the future of production and the action needed to be taken for future
progression in performance and performance studies. The Appendix (in Volume
One) contains detailed venue information. The thesis is intended as a
documented record of productions, in order to stimulate future research into
Jonsonian performance methods. By examining recent productions the failures
and successeso f the contemporaryt heatre's approacht o Jonsonh ave been noted.
This will contribute to an understanding of how Jonson's texts continue to work
on stage. The title of this thesis comes from Bartholomew Fair, a play that
addressesth e need to assimilatet he presentationo f theatre within contemporary
concerns
Weighting and valuing quality-adjusted life-years using stated preference methods: Preliminary results from the social value of a QALY project
No full textObjectives: To identify characteristics of beneficiaries of health care over which relative weights should be derived and to estimate relative weights to be attached to health gains according to characteristics of recipients of these gains (relativities study); and to assess the feasibility of estimating a willingness-topay (WTP)-based value of a quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) (valuation study). Design: Two interview-based surveys were administered - one (for the relativities study) to a nationally representative sample of the population in England and the other (for the valuation study) to a smaller convenience sample. Setting: The two surveys were administered by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) in respondents' homes. Participants: 587 members of the public were interviewed for the relativities study and 409 for the valuation study. Methods: In the relativities study, in-depth qualitative work and considerations of policy relevance resulted in the identification of age and severity of illness as relevant characteristics. Scenarios reflecting these, along with additional components reflecting gains in QALYs, were presented to respondents in a series of pairwise choices using two types of question: discrete choice and matching. These questions were part of a longer questionnaire (including attitudinal and sociodemographic questions), which was administered face to face using a computer-assisted personal interview. In the valuation study, respondents were asked about their WTP to avoid/prevent different durations of headache or stomach illness and to value these states on a scale (death = 0; full health = 1) using standard gamble (SG) questions. Results: Discrete choice results showed that age and severity variables did not have a strong impact on respondents' choices over and above the health (QALY) gains presented. In contrast, matching showed age and severity impacts to be strong: depending on method of aggregation, gains to some groups were weighted three to four times more highly than gains to others. Results from the WTP and SG questions were combined in different ways to arrive at values of a QALY. These vary from values which are in the vicinity of the current National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) threshold to extremely high values. Conclusions: With respect to relative weights, more research is required to explore methodological differences with respect to age and severity weighting. On valuation, there are particular issues concerning the extent to which 'noise' and 'error' in people's responses might generate extreme and unreliable figures. Methods of aggregation and measures of central tendency were issues in both weighting and valuation procedures and require further exploration
